Parallel to the MST-Regionalkonferenz on May 25 2011, the CORONA-Workshop took place at the Airport of Dortmund, Germany. At the beginning of the workshop day the participants were told about the motivation of the CORONA-project, about the “Needs in MEMS Product Engineering”. Afterwards the workshop showed vision, methodology and application scenarios of the FP7-funding-project which was experienced by practice in hands-on-parts by the participants themselves. The development of micro and nano tech devices like MEMS comprises the system design as well as the configuration of an appropriate manufacturing process. Based on a comprehensive methodology the CORONA project offers a software environment that links commercial tools from both areas to a common design flow. In this workshop the companies Coventor S.a.r.l. and Process Relations GmbH demonstrated their new tool developments for the software platforms MEMS+® , Semulator® and Xperi Desk® for seamless MEMS product development. Participants took advantage of “hands on” examples and discussed the tools and their usage with developers. Presentations, demonstration and trainings included amply time for individual interviews and Q&A. Dr. Jens Popp (Process Relations GmbH) also presented the project idea of CORONA at a MST-Regionalkonferenz-Session. You can download the programme here.

April 04-08, 2011

CORONA at the Hanover Fair 2011

M.A. Inga Goltermann, members support of the IVAM Microtechnology Network and coordinator of CORONA, informed at this year's MicroNanoTec/HANNOVER MESSE and caused great interest among the visitors at the IVAM joint pavilion. Most important was the advertisement for CORONA Workshop Customer-Oriented Product Engineering of Micro and Nano Devices which will take place May 25, 2011 at Dortmund Aiport. The program and registration form can be downloaded here.

March 29-30, 2011

NMP manufacturing management workshop in Bilbao, Spain

Dr. Kai Hahn, Dipl.-Ing. Thilo Schmidt and M.A. Inga Goltermann have been joining the NMP manufacturing management workshop at Tecnalia in Bilbao, Spain and represented the CORONA-project. The EU-Commission invited twelve FP7-projects to discuss core industrial problems and the foreseen solution, young researchers made technical presentations on one of the main subjects of research in the projects. The workshop was a helpful tool to start the communication between the several projects and there was the wish for more workshops in exchanging visions and terms of structuring and handling in projects maybe in clusters or networks between the projects.

December 14, 2010

Standards and standardisation as a tool for the dissemination and implementation of research results

The EU-commission invited the CORONA coordinators Dr. Kai Hahn and M.A. Inga Goltermann to Brussels to join the seminar Standards and standardisation as a tool for the dissemination and implementation of research results to inform about terms like economic value of standards in nanotechnologies, electrotechnologies as well as the standards which are relevant for materials and production. Next to presentations there were progress reports from several pre-selected NMP projects which enriched the Panel discussion.

November 17, 2010

CORONA at the COMPAMED/MEDICA

Dr. Christine Neuy, CEO of the IVAM Microtechnology Network and coordinator of CORONA, will report on "Software Tools for Product Engineering of Medical Devices - Results of the Project CORONA" at the COMPAMED/MEDICA Trade Show in Düsseldorf 2010. Her presentation takes place on Wednesday, November 17 at 5:00 p.m. within the forum "High-tech for Medical Devices".

September 29, 2010

Coventor and Process Relations Collaborate to Streamline Fabrication Process Development

Coventor, Inc., the leading supplier of software for developing micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and Process Relations, a provider of enterprise information management systems for high tech process development, announced today a collaboration to develop and market integrated solutions to improve the efficiency of developing next generation fabrication processes for semiconductor and MEMS manufacturers. As part of the cooperation, the companies have developed an interface between the Process Development Execution System XperiDesk™ information management system from Process Relations and Coventor's 3D emulation software SEMulator3D™.

The integration builds on the work the two companies have done within the European FP7-funded CORONA project, a multi-company initiative to improve the efficiency of the value chain in micro- and nanotechnologies.

CORONA booth at the NRW Nano-Conference in Dortmund caused great interest

August 29 - September 2, 2010

CORONA represented the European MEMS-value chain at COMS 2010

Process Relations GmbH provided information about CORONA at the COMS-Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Visitors got information about the project via two posters and a presentation on Efficient virtual manufacturing for MNT. The presentation can be downloaded here.

May 20, 2010

HANNOVER MESSE presentation and list of publications are online

Dr. Christine Neuy, CEO of the IVAM Microtechnology Network and coordinator of CORONA, reported on CORONA at this year's MicroNanoTec/HANNOVER MESSE and caused
great interest among the visitors of the forum "Innovations for Industry". Her presentation Customer-Oriented Product Engineering of Micro and Nano Devices
can be downloaded here.

The latest version of the list of CORONA-publications is online:LINK. This list briefly summarizes all articles about CORONA from July 2008
to December 2009.

May 17-18, 2010

Essential tools for MEMS & IC Systems

From traditional applications (automotive, military...), the MEMS market is now expanding to high volume
applications such as consumer electronics (gaming, mobile phone...). The MEMS ecosystem is evolving at the same time: fabless design houses and pure MEMS
foundries are emerging. In this changing environment MEMS+IC co-design via System Level Simulation and data exchange between engineering designers is becoming
highly critical.
Coventor, the leading provider of MEMS design-automation software, is organizing a 2-days seminar to further explore this topic. During the first day, leading
experts from Schlumberger, ST Microelectronics, Cadence, Coventor etc. will give their vision on challenges given by MEMS+IC and system simulation. The second day
will provide a free-of-charge training on a new design platform called MEMS+TM. MEMS+ allows MEMS+IC co-design within existing widely used simulation tools,
allowing true understanding of the device and control electronics performance.

Dr. Christine Neuy, CEO of the IVAM Microtechnology Network and coordinator of CORONA, will report on "CORONA: Innovative product engineering tools for MEMS" at the MicroNanoTec/HANNOVER MESSE 2010. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, April 21 at 2:30 p.m. within the forum "Innovations for Industry".

February 23,2010

CORONA Review Meeting - Further progress in the development of MEMS products

The EU-funded project CORONA aims at a more rapid development of MEMS products. This is done with the help of new software tools. Current information about prototypes and already commercially available software will be presented in spring at the HANNOVER MESSE 2010. The new tools - whether as add-on to existing software or as complete new developments - allow cost savings and shorter time-to-market in MEMS product development.

Barry Robertson of the European commission did also confirm the good progress of the project. He gave high marks to CORONA at the Review meeting, which took place on February 23.

CORONA is a NMP project (Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies) in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) funded by the European Commission. The CORONA consortium includes companies and institutes that contribute experiences in design methodology and tools for micro- and nanotechnology, MNT production as well as networking and dissemination activities. Apart from IVAM Coventor Sarl from France, Elmos Advanced Packaging BV from the Netherlands, the Polish Instytut Technologii Elektronowej, the German companies Process Relations GmbH and X-FAB Semiconductor Foundries AG, Theon Sensors SA from Greece and the universities of Cambridge, Great Britain and Siegen, Germany are involved as project partners. Robert Bosch, Cavendish Kinetics und FRT Fries Research & Technology give advice to the project as members of the industrial board.

October 12-14, 2009

CORONA at the Mikrosystemtechnik-Kongress

Latest project results were presented at the Mikrosystemtechnik-Kongress from October 12 to 14, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. There CORONA was represented by the partners Coventor Sarl, IVAM, Process Relations, University of Siegen and X-FAB.

The COMS conference 2009 on the commercialization of micro and nano systems took place from August 30 to September 4 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The latest themes were discussed within the 280 attendees during three days in 27 sessions and nine plenary talks. On Thursday and Friday technical tours to DTU Danchip and DTI were organized.

IVAM presented together with Process Relations and Coventor Sarl the EU project CORONA in the exhibition and in a talk. In addition, a paper on "A customer-driven approach to product engineering of micro and nano devices - requirement analysis" was presented by Process Relations CTO Dirk Ortloff on Wednesday, September 2, in the frame of the CORONA project.

The focus of themes of COMS laid extremely on nanomedicine and nanobio as well as - as central for the conference - on business strategies, business models, management in times of crisis, financing and education/training. Energy and healthcare were confirmed to be important application fields of micro- and nanotechnologies. Consumer electronics were considered as further ongoing trend.

Altogether, the conference showed that the situation in different companies in times of crisis can range from collapse to high market growth. The next COMS conference will take place in New Mexico, USA, from August 22 to 26, 2010.

August 2-6, 2009

Paper on the environment for thin-film manufacturing process development presented at SPIE Optics+Photonics

A paper on "Environment for Thin-film Manufacturing Process Development for Product Engineering of Micro and Nano Devices" was presented by the University of Siegen and Process Relations at the SPIE Optics+Photonics conference, which took place from August 2 to 6, 2009 in San Diego, USA.

July 26-30, 2009

Paper on data management for silicon-based fabrication process development introduced at IEEE NANO

"Micro and Nano Product Engineering using Data Management for Silicon-based Fabrication Process Development" is the title of a paper which was introduced by the University of Siegen and Process Relations during the nanotechnology conference IEEE NANO from July 26 to 30, 2009 in Genoa, Italy. The paper describes a comprehensive customer-oriented product engineering methodology for MNT products.

The CORONA partners at a project meeting in Cambridge in June. Source: Universität Siegen.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, minister for innovation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (right), visiting the CORONA booth at the NRW Nano-Conference. Source: dortmund-project.

July 1, 2009

European project CORONA looks back on a promising first year

One year has passed since the kick-off of the European project CORONA, which aims at accelerating the businesses of European companies by enabling faster product engineering. Nine partners from all along the value chain in micro- and nanotechnologies (MNT) are working towards this goal during the three-year run-time of the project. First results were, amongst others, introduced at the NRW Nano-Conference from June 22 to 23, 2009 in Dortmund, Germany. Crucially the project partners have defined future products and thereby have approached the exploitation of the project results. Several presentations throughout Europe also sparked interest in CORONA from companies outside the consortium.

June 25-27, 2009

Paper on thermo-mechanical aspects of reliability for vertically integrated heterogeneous systems to be presented at MIXDES '09

The ITE (Instytut Technologii Elektronowej) will participate at the MIXDES - 16th International Conference Mixed Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems from June 25 to 27, 2009 in Łodź, Poland with the presentation of a paper entitled "Thermo-Mechanical Aspects of Reliability for Vertically Integrated Heterogeneous Systems". For further information on the conference please visit www.mixdes.org.

The paper presents important aspects of device reliability related to the 3D integration and mechanical stress dependent on the device 3D structure. The aim is to analyse mechanical stress-related reliability issues, along with selected guidelines for designers.

Paper on multi-domain modeling and simulation of heterogeneous systems to be presented at the Diagnostics & Yield Symposium

The ITE (Instytut Technologii Elektronowej) will present the paper "Multi-domain Modeling and Simulation of Heterogeneous Systems" from June 22 to 24, 2009 at the 8th Symposium Diagnostics & Yield Advanced Silicon Devices and Technologies for ULSI Era in Warsaw, Poland. For further information follow the link www.dy.imio.pw.edu.pl.

The paper describes a novel customer-oriented methodology of device modeling and simulation. Selected tools are presented along with various samples of the 3D integration technology. Modern, customer-oriented design methodology is also discussed. Selected samples of device designs for particular 3D technologies are presented along with modeling and simulation of 3D device design samples.

Best Paper Award for "MEMS-IC Common Platform" presentation at CDNLive!

On May 18, Coventor introduced MEMS+ to the market at the CDNLive! EMEA 2009 event in Munich, Germany. During the conference held annually by Cadence, Coventor presented the new MEMS design software to the Cadence user community. The presentation "MEMS-IC Common Platform" given by Gunar Lorenz was awarded with a "Best Paper Award".

Coventor has been working on MEMS+ in close collaboration with industry partners. The software combines the overall MEMS design knowledge and experience, and plugs it into the Cadence Virtuoso IC design flow. MEMS+ as a design solution for MEMS and IC products solves one of the major problems that keep companies from being successful in MEMS. It closes the divide between MEMS designers and IC designers, creating all "views" needed in Virtuoso, simulating using Spectre or UltraSIM while maintaining the 3D MEMS and multi-physics work environment for the user. The software goes beyond a one-directional design hand-off; it allows for faster response times to design changes and avoids many human errors that are fatal to MEMS and IC prototypes.

This development is part of Coventor's contribution to the research program CORONA, funded by the European Union. For further information please contact Gerold Schröpfer (gerold.schropfer (at) coventor.com).

The novelty of the tool lies in its use of voxels (3D pixels) rather than conventional 3D CAD techniques to represent the 3D geometry. This way, highly realistic, 3D virtual prototypes of micro-fabricated devices are created. The examination of these virtual prototypes can reveal design errors as well as the impact of design changes and process variations before each mask tape out and fab run, potentially reducing or eliminating design-fabricate-test cycles. To demonstrate the value of this tool to a foundry, the paper describes how the tool has been applied to a MEMS SOI micromachining process. Two detailed case studies are provided: a 3D design check that reveals a design flaw before fabrication, and an analysis of a process failure which confirms the suspected cause of undesired pocket-like cavities on the edges of silicon structures.

In the first week of May, FiF, an organisation for women in EU research, organises an action week on chances for female scientists in the 7th European Research Programme. Beside the discussion about women's role in science and the attempt to overcome barriers for participation opportunities, another goal of the event is to generate more attention for the successful participation of women, in particular in EU research funding. The opening event of the action week takes place on May 4 in Berlin, Germany in collaboration with the CORONA project coordinator IVAM Microtechnology Network. Participation is free of charge. Further information (in German) is available at www.ivam.de/index.php?content=messe_details&id=409 and www.eubuero.de/arbeitsbereiche/fraueneuforschung/aktionswoche#Auftakt.

April 20-24, 2009

CORONA presentation at MicroTechnology/HANNOVER MESSE in Hanover

IVAM Microtechnology Network will introduce the project CORONA at MicroTechnology/HANNOVER MESSE from April 20 to 24, 2009, in Hanover, Germany. Dr. Christine Neuy will hold a presentation at the forum "Innovations for Industry" on April 21 and will also be available for questions on the project during the fair. Further information on the IVAM Product Market and the forum at MicroTechnology/HANNOVER MESSE is available on www.ivam.de/index.php?content=messe_details&id=357&clear=2.

March 10-11, 2009

Modeling and simulation issues of heterogeneous systems from the reliability point of view presented at SMART SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

The ITE (Instytut Technologii Elektronowej) has presented a paper entitled "Reliability Issues in Modeling and Simulation of Heterogeneous Integrated Systems" from March 10 to 11 at the SMART SYSTEMS INTEGRATION conference and exhibition in Brussels, Belgium. The paper refers to some targets of the CORONA project. It discusses a set of selected CAD tools and 3D design methodologies. One of them is the Hedoris (HEterogeneous Device ORIented Simulation) system developed for multi-site distributed product design. Important reliability issues are also discussed in the paper that presents multi-site product development with strong customer feedback intended to interfere and even keep control of the product engineering process.

Process Relations GmbH has presented a CORONA overview at the New Materials Forum on the 5th and 6th of March in Valencia, Spain (http://www.e-unlimited.com/events/p200253/overview.asp). The overview covered the history of Process Relations and its history in the Promenade project as well as the continuation and extension of the concepts within the CORONA project. Additionally the general project idea and structure were presented.

EDA-compatible methodology for design and simulation of MEMS with IC introduced at the 7th GI/GMM/ITG workshop in Ulm

Coventor Sarl has presented the paper "A Novel EDA-Compatible Methodology for Design and Simulation of MEMS with IC" during the 7th GI/GMM/ITG workshop on Multi-Nature Systems on February 3, 2009, in Ulm, Germany (conference webpage: http://www.uni-ulm.de/index.php?id=14106). The paper defines an entirely new methodology for designing MEMS devices and simulating them together with integrated electronics within a standard EDA environment. The tool to realise this is an integrated platform for doing MEMS and IC design, simulation and product development.

At least two aspects of this new methodology are unique. First, the MEMS designer can construct the behavioural model in a 3D view. This direct creation of a MEMS device in a 3D view is expected to be more natural for MEMS engineers who are used to working in a 3D CAD environment. The resulting 3D view differs from a typical feature-based 3D CAD modelling tool in the underlying behavioural model associated with each MEMS component. Second, the behavioural model of the complete MEMS device that is shared with the standard EDA environment can be fully parameterised with respect to manufacturing- and design-dependent variables. The new methodology has been fully implemented and is demonstrated through an RF switch design example.

From England to Greece: on July 1, the partners of the EU project CORONA met for a kick-off meeting at Elmos Advanced Packaging in the Dutch Nijmegen.

March 2008

Project CORONA succeeds in the EU 7th Framework ­Programme (FP7)

The project CORONA – Customer-Oriented Product Engineering of Micro and Nano Devices – has succeeded in the first NMP Call. It is one of the 48 projects in the SMALL area, which convinced in the competition. Altogether, 769 projects have been submitted in the first step.

The project will be funded by the European Commission with three million Euros for three years. The partners come from six nations. IVAM Microtechnology Network is coordinator of the project. Involved are:

Objective of the project is to contribute to product engineering for micro and nanotechnology by

a) supporting integrated, distributed, multi-site product development with the customer in lead and control of the process,
b) providing comprehensive and secure access to knowledge-bases for design and fabrication knowledge, and
c) offering information and communication technology infrastructure and tools needed to support customer services, design assistance and fab integration.